Indigenous languages are under siege, not only in the United States but also around the world, in danger of disappearing because they are not being transmitted to the next generation. Immigrants and their languages worldwide are similarly subject to seemingly irresistible social, political, and economic pressures. Yet, at a time when phrases such as "endangered languages" and "linguicism" are invoked to describe the plight of the world's vanishing linguistic resources in their encounter with the phenomenal growth of world languages such as English, there is also consistent and compelling evidence that language policy and language education serve as vehicles for promoting the vitality, versatility, and stability of these languages, and ultimately of the rights of their speakers to participate in the global community on and in their own terms. (Contains 53 references.) (Author)